Undeath, Terror and Acid Hunters: Let's talk Urgot

Allowing on hit effects on Acid Hunters would be a pretty sizeable power spike that I suspect would make Triforce or IBG mandatory, not just an option. As a result I'd like to investigate other ways of compensating for Muramana changes if needed.

What is wrong with havnig Triforce or IBG a mandatory item? An item such as Triforce will supply him with all his essentials (Mana for the potential mana based shield, HP to make him a bit more tanky, movement speed to follow up on enemy's, and crit for this inbetween autos on occasion). Hell, this would allow an item such as Essence to be viable on him.

Tentative list of changes we're looking at for that first patch (note, not yet in testing, so may well change):...

With meta shifts I believe Urgot's most viable roles in solo queue are jungle/top/support. He doesn't offer the burst or kiting that's generally expected from the mid or adc roles.

These proposed changes are a small net nerf to both jungle and support Urgot since neither benefits from ease of last hitting and both suffer from the increased mana cost on Acid Hunter.

It would also be a questionable buff for most top lane matchups. I can only speak for myself, but I average well over two harass/trade Acid Hunters per last hit use. This is especially true pre-tear because you have to save the vast majority of your mana for trading so you aren't forced to make an early back.

What is wrong with havnig Triforce or IBG a mandatory item? An item such as Triforce will supply him with all his essentials (Mana for the potential mana based shield, HP to make him a bit more tanky, movement speed to follow up on enemy's, and crit for this inbetween autos on occasion). Hell, this would allow an item such as Essence to be viable on him.

Applying on hit effects would make him have a 2 second CD Ezreal Q. It would just be over powered.

I have experience playing Urgot Top, Mid, Jungle, Support, and Marksman at a Diamond 4/3 level with a 56% Win-Rate across 43 Games on this account.

The Q change is an direct nerf to Support and Jungle Urgot

The Q change is an overall nerf to Top Lane Urgot in ideal yet realistic situations.

The Q change is a potential buff to Mid Lane Urgot and Marksman Urgot when facing Lane Bullies, but Mana Costs are less of an issue on Mid Lane Urgot.

The missile speed change and R cooldown/mana buffs seem like safe changes which should help Urgot in all roles without giving him too much power.

The proposed W changes to scale with AD would be hard to balance as it would be a huge buff to Glass Cannon ~400 AD Mid and Marksman Urgot while being less useful on Top, Support, and Jungle Urgot which rarely build more than 200 bonus AD.

The proposed W changes to scale with MP would be a buff to Urgot in all lanes as he builds some form of mana (Manamune/Frozen Heart) as part of his Core Item Build.

Nice post, appreciate the rationale provided for each statement (just quoting the TLDR here since it's a really long quote otherwise). To respond to a couple of specific things:

Q last hitting's often not necessary, agreed. It is however something Urgot sometimes needs to fall back on against ranged opponents unless he's really dominating the lane throughout and that's one of the cases we'd like to add some power to him. It's also possible the cost increase won't be necessary and we'll be able to get away with just offering the half refund on kill, my suspicion is it'll probably be a needed change however hence the first version to go into testing's going to try it out.

Range on the rank 1 ult does feel pretty poor, no argument, and the reduction to it made a while back was basically a band aid fix due to the problems the ult creates in lane in particular. Might be possible to at least synch it to his attack range, will give that a look, unfortunately this is a case where we need to rework the spell to really address the feel bad aspect of it.

Meddler, could you increase Urgot's range to 550? Or at least Jayce's range with mercury cannon?
And could you increase his base mana stats too?

Something I'd like to avoid is turning Urgot into a standard ADC and a substantial AA range buff, with other adjustments to compensate, would push him pretty far down that road. Base mana buffs on the other hand are a possibility, though current inclination is to give him ways to regain mana instead or be rewarded more for building mana/regen.

- adding some damage to his ult (not much, just to make it feel better to use)
- increasing its range (urgot doesn't have to expose himself pre-use-and-resistance-buff)
or
- allowing urgot to cast w while ulting (but not other abiliites - like how Garen can cast his shield while he's spinning, but not his q) - so he'll have some protection, even if he's building damage.

Hmm, being able to cast W mid ult seems pretty reasonable. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll throw that onto the list of possibilities to test for the second change list.

I like the idea of adding in a Mana scaling, but I don't like the idea of removing the AP scaling without adding in MORE mana scalings elsewhere on the kit. Design trends have gotten progressively more pidgon-holey as things go on, and things that "aren't the best-case scenario" are just being pruned. Back in the ol' days, auto-attacks scaled off AD, and spells scaled off AP. Not quite period, so I'll use a semicolon here; the only exception was On-Hit Spells like Ez+GP, and they were pretty special for that. I was honestly surprised, and pleased, that Sivir's rework left an AP ratio on her Q, and that kind of made me happy (even though it's not even in the slightest bit feasible for her to do AP, unlike say Ez/Trist, or even Siv's trollicious epic battle between Lord Voldemordekaiser & Miss Dumbledortune.

Anywho, leaving a little shred of feasibility for enjoyable off-builds is not an inherently unhealthy thing in League, and infact can add a richness. It would be nice if Urgot's shield kept a really strong AP ratio, and his other tanky/utility aspects (AA's apply mini-exhaust, shield allows slowing, ult buffs his tankiness) scaled too so Urgot could wiggle himself into a silly bully-support role.

I admit I can't see Urgot picking up AP really apart from the occasional bit from Baron, IBG/Triforce, buffs from allies etc. Don't see any noticeable issues with leaving the AP ratio there as well if we do end up adding a mana ratio however, so inclined to do so, even if it's only appreciated by those going for pretty unusual builds occasionally.

Ultimately I think the biggest problem with Urgot is that he's half of two completely different champions but he doesn't have the functionality to be an either/or champion either.

E-Q interaction clearly sets up Urgot as a giant siege engine, raining long range death with his homing missile spam... but that's also ALL he can do at range.

His auto range, ult, W and passive all make him look like a short range bruiser more like rumble or the old sivir in terms of what ranges he wants to fight at... but he doesn't have a lot to incentivize him being in that range either. Sure, he needs to be in that range to land an ult, but he doesn't have a lot of tools to support an ult that dumps him in the middle of a teamfight. His autos are short... but he doesn't have anything to incentivize significantly upping his auto damage: He wants AD for his combo, but he's not gonna get enough AS or crit to really make shooting with him viable.

So we get this confusing dichotomy where he's either a siege engine who puts himself in the middle of the enemy team for some reason (imagine if Lux's R teleported her to the first enemy it hit? Would it make any sense for the character kit wise?)... or he's a short range bruiser who dumps himself in the middle of the enemy team and then... nothing (contrast with say, Malphite, who jumps in the middle of the enemy team then starts dumping AoEs).

The in-congruency and incompatibility between his various abilities is really what kills him here.